


The Branding of John Watson (in which John Watson is not the only one branded).

by TheSoundOfHerWings



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Greaserlock, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:49:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoundOfHerWings/pseuds/TheSoundOfHerWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The threat of boarding school coming up on Sherlock, due to various fights at alarming frequencies and the interference of a very stupid brother, he has to figure out a way to defend himself. The solution to not coming home all bloodied up and torn into pieces is a fairly easy one to realise -- John Watson will teach him. The nice, unassuming, undoubtedly physically strong rugby player has shown evidence of being able to fight, and not being a complete idiot. And approaching him? Also easy, once a way is figured out. What isn't so easy is that fact that John Watson is the type of man who doesn't leave your veins. He brands himself into you, leaves you completely filled with him until he is part of your universe.</p><p>In which Sherlock learns to fight, and he also learns a few things about friendship along the way, previously denied to him.</p><p><i>a friend said,</i><br/><i> "all ya gotta do is go out on the sidewalk</i><br/><i>and lay down</i><br/><i>somebody will pick you up</i><br/><i>somebody will take care of you</i><br/>- a free 25-page booklet, Charles Bukowski</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Branding of John Watson (in which John Watson is not the only one branded).

Sherlock’s fists were pretty damn bloodied by the time he even got in a pause to breathe. The blood wasn’t just spattered across his brow or lip, it was dripping like slime, oozing between his fingers, dried under the tip of his too long nails. He only got a moment to pant, his gelled slick of hair falling into pieces down onto his sweaty forehead, before the idiot ivy-leaguers were back on him. There were two punches to his stomach, making his back round out as he grunted, and one elbow coming sharply down between his shoulder blades. Fuck, he almost grunted, but part of him knew that would be conceding. Letting them know that he’d been hurt, and of course he wasn’t. Of course their antics couldn’t hurt him. 

These particular, _idiotic_ , jocks had never bothered him before. Sure, they had watched as others antagonised the sixteen-year old, laughed on the sidelines, offered some tips. “Punch him in the stomach. Yeah, put one on his nose. Twist his arm around!” This was new, and to Sherlock maybe new blew a bit, but at least it was interesting; there was new data to take in with every point of contact and weaknesses to catalogue as elbows (not at the maximum angle to cause pain. Idiot.) swung in the backlash of oncoming punches. That one decision set them apart from the crowd -- from the idiots that could maybe learn to not be so idiotic, to the idiots who never had a chance. Don’t try to punch someone who understands physics. 

Though he wasn’t a trained fighter, never had any experience, really, what did you need? He did alright. He could keep up. Stay alive. That was what mattered, wasn’t it? Didn’t matter how bruised you were when you tramped in the house, mussing up the newly-mopped floors, so long as you did had both lungs intact. Maybe not even both. Maybe one would do. Maybe having a collapsed lung would be interesting. Distract from the dull colors of every-day. He knew anatomy, though. How bodies worked. How they breathed, functioned, walked. He even believed he could theorise how dreams worked. (How imaginative your mother was while pregnant, talking about all sorts of things. If she talked with a worldly view in mind, you’d be a big dreamer. One of those types that could almost see into the future. As if every scenario you could ever imagine played out right in front of you. If she was dull (most people were), you’d be born with a lesser imagination and less drive to accomplish anything.) That was how Sherlock saw it, anyway. 

And he wondered, as he lay with his face pressed to the pavement of the schoolyard, why he could hear, reverberating underneath the asphalt, the click and bounce of basketballs dribbled by fucks who wanted to achieve their life goals by dunking spherical objects into netted hoops, but they could not hear brilliance when it was projected out at them through his very insistent mouth. Why were their dreams so apparent and his so abhorrent? 

They wanted to run around and spin spheres on their fingers and he? He wanted to unwrap the mysteries of the universe. He wanted to take the fabric of space, time, and the human mind and rip their beauty into carefully constructed deductions. He wanted to present to the scientists of the world a piece of paper that told them the formula of their lives. 

At three, he’d spoken his first sentence: _Mummy, father is not monogamous._ Effectively in five words, the largest that he’d strung together yet, he’d ruined his parents marriage and alienated himself from his mother. There was no coming back from that. She hadn’t spoken to him other than what was completely necessary since then. Thirteen years later and Violet still hadn’t gotten over the grudge.

Sherlock himself thought it was a bit backward. She could be angry at him for exposing the secret – so angry that she had chosen to stop mothering him – or she could be angry at his _father_ , the one who had committed adultery for the act. Though, Sherlock always thought that everyone else around him seemed to lack a very fundamental sense of common logic. Why should he have to be penalized for the fact that he had been sharp enough to smell the perfume that was _distinctly not mummy_ or the stains on his white shirts that were _not mummy’s lip stain_ or that his shirts were folded haphazardly as if they had laid, wrinkled, on some foreign carpet. Yet he was the one who was shut out. A black veil existed between his mother and him, and a cold sheet of winter ice between he and his father. The only one whoever spoke to him unless there was company around was his blasted brother, who, coincidentally, was the only one Sherlock wished _wouldn’t_ talk to him.

Which, in fact, what Sherlock hoped for as he stumped in his house, slicking his hair back into one greasy block, was that his brother’s raised eyebrows would turn away from him without comment. No fucking way his luck would be that good. Quirking his mouth into a macabre smile, the blood seeping in between the spaces between his teeth. 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed, rolling his eyes. Sherlock both loved and hated that look. He loved that he could break his brother’s solid composure and make him upset, but he hated having to worry about Mycroft’s retribution. There were multiple things that Mycroft could do. He, out of everyone Sherlock had ever met, would be the one that would be able to break Sherlock. Stealing his microscope, placing his carbon with salt, that all would bring Sherlock up to the point of fury. His prized possessions were the metal microscope he’d gotten from his grandfather who had been a pretty good scientist in Sherlock’s opinion -- though he could be better -- and his chemicals. His leather jacket was a close second, how it felt against his skin was pure vanilla syrup, as well as the gel that kept his hair away from his head while he worked. He was labeled the school’s “greaser.” Whether that made him cool or a freak varied from person to person, but it wasn’t something that he necessarily something he’d meant to do. He liked the leather against his skin and slicking his hair back was the easiest way to get it to stay out of his face while also keeping the dark curls that could be so endearing when he had to charm someone. His appearance was a combination of conveniences and preferences -- what people took it for wasn’t his responsibility, nor did he really find himself caring what they thought. It was actually quite amusing to him what preconceived traits came with his label. They expected him to be into cigarettes (true) and “ditching school” (he didn’t need to be there -- the teachers were fucking morons), but that he was an idiot? Far from the truth, though he liked to keep it under wraps. It wouldn’t do to have people going around knowing that he was smarter than probably all of them put together. 

 

“Mm,” Sherlock muttered back, wiping the back of his wrist across his mouth and smearing the blood. The metallic ringing seeped onto some of his tastebuds and he could practically taste the heat flowing through him. His skin seemed to visibly beat with every slice of blood through his heart. He wagged his eyebrows at Mycroft and felt more than saw the spark of anger in his brother’s eyes light. 

“Sherlock, this has to stop,” Mycroft spat, slipping his hands into the perfectly-pressed cream trousers he was wearing. Eyeing them, Sherlock’s own black jeans -- stained from the accidents of his nicotine-blazing hands holding chemicals that could melt his skin -- seemed juvenile in comparison. 

“Do you think that I ask for this, Mycroft?” Sherlock tilted his head, lighting a cigarette in the foyer and taking a deep drag, blowing it out in a huff of relief. “Do you think that I walk around with a sign on my head that instructs the violence? I’m _defending_ myself,” he mumbled, rolling his eyes. Not that he minded. He had a lot of anger trapped in his skin that the fights helped to get out. The blood dripping down his mouth was nothing compared to the stained walls of his brain, throbbing with rage.

“I think that you allow it, brother dear.” Mycroft’s teeth were gritted against his tongue as he also watched the smoke rise to the ceiling. No doubt he was worried about it staining Mummy’s precious patterned ceiling. “You walk around as if you are less than what we give you. Stained clothes? That awful hair? You walk around like you’re ordinary. _Common_. That is not how you were raised.”

“No,” Sherlock barked out a laugh, scuffing his boots against the rug. “That’s how you idiots wanted to condition me.” He stalked toward Mycroft, his face curving upward as he crouched his back. The haggard-looking stance was something he’d adopted from the homeless people he met as he walked to school. The posture imitated dirt. Grime. Sherlock, being the living embodiment of that, was a stain on his parents’ lives. Loving him was Mycroft’s guilty pleasure, and he loved that. He enjoyed the way Mycroft seemed to cave in his chest as if cringing away as he got closer. They were almost the same height, despite the seven years of difference in between them. “A trophy child. What a wonderful phrase, isn’t it? Oh, I know I could be a good one,” he smirked, turning his head to admire himself in the mirror above the key hooks. “The dark hair, the light eyes. Slim physique. I could be more than you, you know. More “beautiful.” Mummy wouldn’t be able to wait to show me off, unlike you, whom she shows off because she doesn’t have a more handsome son.” Sherlock batted his eyelashes softly at he leant on Mycroft, whose nostrils flared. When he stepped away, he smoothed down the front of his maroon button up and navy blazer. “Look at you, little ivy leaguer,” Sherlock hummed as he walked toward the stairs. “So eager to please.” With a laugh he began to climb the stairs. The small chuckle from his brother was not what he expected and turning, he narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“If you keep this up, Sherlock, Mummy and I have talked about it. We’re sending you off to boarding school.” The sentence hit Sherlock. Send him off? He turned around and took another drag out of his cigarette. 

“Pardon?” The smile on Mycroft’s face spread -- the fucking shit asshole.

“Boarding school,” he repeated. “You’ll be going if you don’t get your act together.” Sherlock watched Mycroft walk away, for a long while just letting the filter on his cigarette burn. It was a small satisfaction that the pile of ash on the carpet was growing. He made sure to step it into the threads as he took the stairs to his room. 

Trudging into his room, his throat felt tight. No doubt Mycroft knew that when he was at boarding school, he wouldn’t be allowed to conduct his experiments. His brain would sit there while he neglected to do the useless homework and rot. It would disintegrate. Fall to pieces. Within a few months, he would forget the the first three-thousand digits of pi. Not that they were really worth anything, but it was a small consolation that he could either impress or quiet anyone he wanted with just a few numbers. He would have to wear a uniform. He would lose the comforting smoky leather against his skin. There would be no smoking. He would have to sneak away to sneak fags outside of campus, and he sure not to let the smell cling to his clothes. 

In short, boarding school was something that could not possibly happen. It was something he could not possibly _let_ happen. There were multiple solutions to the problem, he was sure. Though he wasn’t at fault, it seemed he was the one that was going to have to fix it. Fitting, seeing as he bad the most functional brain of all of them. He stumped the cigarette out on his jeans and lit another one. Some days he would go through a whole pack, on lighting cigarettes to take a drag of the first one and then put them out because the first one was the one with the most nicotine. It was the best. 

He hung off his chair, his head lolling back as he held the smoke in as long as he could. He waited until he could feel the throbbing of flood in his head increase in intensity and black played at the edges of his vision before letting it out. He couldn’t stop the fights, but he could stop coming home so beaten. Perhaps if no one knew that he was getting into fights, he could pretend like it wasn’t happening. He would need to learn two things -- how to fight, and how to take care of himself. 

There were self-defense classes, but those were a joke. He could read up on it, but reading boring books was something that was enough to build up the rage inside of him again. He would have to find someone to teach him to fight. So someone strong, but someone that he could hold his own against should they try to take advantage. That left someone short. He wouldn’t be able to deal with idiots, so someone generally intelligent (that narrowed it down quite a lot) and someone that, if possible, would be nice to him. 

He laid there, sliding from his chair down to the floor, where he pulled a can of beer from under his bed, and laying on his back, brought it to his lips. Alternating between the fag and the alcohol, he let his mind wander languidly over the people at his school. It wasn’t long before it fell on someone who fit all the criteria: John Watson. 

The five-foot-five football player was nice enough -- had even said hello and smiled at him once. He was strong, as evidence by the time someone tried to slap his girlfriend and he threw them so hard against the wall that they came in with a neck brace the next day. Unfortunately, no charges were pressed. That would have been interesting for Sherlock to see. A break in the monotony of every day was something that the young teenager looked for with striking insistence. 

How would he approach him? Start a fight? No, he wouldn’t want to put the guy on his guard the first time they talked. He would have to try to be nice. Should he put on his whole charming persona? Leave his hair gelled, put on a button down and proper trousers? Look nice enough to warrant his help? Or would that throw him off even more? Sherlock hummed to himself, pulling his body up to down the can of beer and stump the fag out on his jeans, throw them both in the trash next to his desk and put on the latest Cure record on. He would have to see. John Watson would be his ticket out of boarding school, if he could settle on the proper way to approach him.


End file.
